Text bethedude to 31996 to get weekly safety text messages.

How Alcohol Impaired Driving Has Impacted Me

By Adriana Calzada-Camacho

Growing up and being around people who drink a lot has made me look at alcohol differently.

When I was younger (about 10 years old), my family and I were headed back home from a party. My dad had been drinking at the party, but he was the only person that could drive us back home that night. I don’t know what we were thinking by getting in the car with him. Instead of driving north to where our house was, he drove us south. He kept assuring us he knew the way back home, but you could tell he had forgotten. We would swerve in lanes, and everything was just so scary. I would close my eyes because I was terrified he would crash. Eventually, he realized he was drunk, and was going the wrong way. It took us an hour to get home (a drive that should have been no less than 30 mins ever since we left the party). Thankfully we were home, but it was a scary drive.

On another incident, one of my neighbors would get drunk every day. He would act so wild and loud until midnight, which was scary. One time, he was so drunk, he decided to get in his car and drive somewhere. Well, he didn’t get too far because he ended up crashing into the light pole that was down the street, and into a person’s yard. Thankfully there were no injured people.

As you can see, the people who have surrounded me since I was little have had an impact on me. The decisions they have taken have made me pretty much hate alcohol, since drinking too much can lead to many consequences.

Adriana Calzada-Camacho is a University of Texas at Arlington student studying Social Work & Criminal Justice.